


you shine in your way

by miabicicletta



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: F/M, Sherlock Series 3 Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-09
Updated: 2014-03-09
Packaged: 2018-01-15 04:54:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1292173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/miabicicletta/pseuds/miabicicletta
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You're not thinking about the lie you keep close, secreted away in a small, inside pocket of your heart. The one you take out occasionally, very late at night, in the quietness of the morgue or when the crowd around you is too absorbed in some play on-screen to notice the unfocused, far-awayness about you. In those silent, hidden spaces of your life, you take your secret out and marvel at it. How this big, magnificent, important thing – so much bigger and more important than you are – fits somewhere so...small. So unlikely." </p><p>Seven playlists Molly Hooper made over three years (for one reason).</p>
            </blockquote>





	you shine in your way

**Author's Note:**

> Music is important to me. I think it's important to all of us. In fandom, we make playlists, incorporate favorite tracks into videos, write songfics. There's always that one song that you just cannot, _cannot_ for the life of you, listen to without your OTP coming to mind (for me, it's [All for a Woman by the Airborne Toxic Event](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DaMWRKRzJEk)). Music is one more framework we use to fill in the space between canon and ideal – the perfect imagined situational, sexual, emotional, physical culminations that we, being dreaming creatures, cannot help but create for ourselves, and our characters. 
> 
> So. Here are some songs to fill that unbearable divide between the as-is and as-imagined. There are sad songs, there are pop songs. There are big symphonic melodies and highly-produced electronic pieces. The title comes from the song ["Giving Up the Gun"](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bccKotFwzoY&feature=kp) by Vampire Weekend (I warned you about the pop songs.) 
> 
> They are all available to listen to on the [40-track SUPERCUT MIXTAPE](http://8tracks.com/miabicicletta/you-shine-in-your-way) I’ve made on 8tracks, in the order presented here. Not all are Sherlock/Molly centric (though, to be sure, many are), some are more about one, or the other, or Tom and Molly’s relationship, or Molly and Janine, but that’s only my perspective. Find what you will from your own experience. Whichever songs do it for you, there is something of a narrative to be found in the playlists. Sometimes the combination of songs means to paint an emotional portrait, other times the sound, style, speed, etc. is meant to cultivate a specific mood. If Molly has somewhat better taste in music than in clothes, well, then I think she’s hardly out of character here (although I totally maintain that with some skinny jeans, a long necklace and a sweet pair of Miz Mooz or Camper flats, she’d rock those jumpers like the trendiest of hipsters). 
> 
> Endless thanks to [lachesisgrimm (olga_theodora)](http://archiveofourown.org/users/olga_theodora/pseuds/lachesisgrimm) for her attentive beta-reading skills. I've made some changes since she looked it over, so certainly any errors and typos are mine. 
> 
> Also? Just go with the iTunes playlist file path thing. *Hand waves* Shhh. This isn’t the OS you are looking for.

_> >users/mhooper/music/itunes/playlists/2012/habits-die-hard_  
She & Him - Sentimental Heart  
Bloc Party - Two More Years  
Cat Power - I Found a Reason (Velvet Underground cover)  
Regina Spektor - Samson (Live in London)  
Iron & Wine - Each Coming Night 

.  
.  
.

It feels like there’s this weird, invisible hole in London after he leaves. Some essential part of the city, that sort of, intangible _London_ ness of London, blinks out. The city forget itself. It makes you sad, and the feeling keeps striking you at odd, uneven moments. At the sight of black cabs and good shoes and maps of the Underground, the sound of quick-paced footsteps, the pungent scent of nicotine or ethanol.

Your life doesn’t change overly much. It improves, actually. Not as many late nights, for one. No demanding texts or desperate shift-changes with all those colleagues, who _just can't work with him, Molly!_ for another. You do love your job, and you’re very good at it, but one of the perks had always been proximity to Sherlock Holmes in action. The work itself is fine. Not unsatisfying. It’s just, well, a bit boring, really. There’s little of the _sexiness_ you had to look forward to – those little thrills of anticipation when you got a text from him, or when he showed up in your lab, all dark and blazing and brilliant. The shifts seem longer now. Especially at night, when the unchanging litany of routine stretches without interruption from midnight to dawn. 

In place of those bright adrenaline-rush moments, you find yourself worrying fiercely about where and how he is. You search for his face in crowds, knowing it’s irrational, that he’ll not be found in London or England or possibly even this hemisphere. But you can’t just flip a switch. You wish you could. It would make your life so much easier. 

From your headphones the music drowns everything out, and the world goes by in a blur, barreling on like a train carriage that you can’t stop. The sound and fury of the city fades beneath Chan Marshall doing some old song by The Velvet Underground. “I do believe in all the things you see,” she sings in her whiskey-smoke warble. You love a good cover song. Pretty much the whole reason for why you used to like _Glee_. “What comes is better than what came before,” she sings. 

You skip to the next track. 

.  
.  
.

You visit his grave just the one time, a drizzly Wednesday afternoon long after the proper funeral. You couldn’t bear to go with everyone else. It seemed wrong. Unfair. And anyway you couldn’t face your friends, knowing what they did not. You leave a single tiger lily that is a lone, bright splash of color amid dingy and decaying roses. Stupidly, you want to cry. As you walk away, you blink back tears, frustrated and annoyed at yourself for feeling such grief over a man who isn’t actually dead. 

.  
.  
.

_> >users/mhooper/music/itunes/playlists/2013/hear-me-roar_  
Belle & Sebastian - Another Sunny Day  
Katy Perry - Roar  
Neko Case - People Gotta a Lotta Nerve  
Matt and Kim - It’s Alright  
Passion Pit - Carried Away 

.  
.  
.

Life goes on. It’s hard, but routine being what it is, time shuffles along and suddenly it’s summer. A guy shows up and takes an interest, and...actually, that's nice. You didn't expect it, weren't even really trying to date, but Krina's husband Billy is very social with his geeky, engineer colleagues and occasionally, when you meet up for a drink on weekends or make a climbing date with the pair of them, one of Billy’s friends will just so happen to join as well. You usually roll your eyes at Krina and her patently obvious scheming, but the tall one with the cheery grin is sweet – actually, properly sweet, like you stopped ever really expecting anyone to ever be – and before long, you're in an actual, proper, _nice_ relationship. 

You do actual, proper, couple-type things, going on dates to films and concerts. Tom is a hardware engineer who designs arcane ways of making electrons move around a circuit board and speaks a strange technical language of acronyms and abbreviations. You don't really understand what he does, but you get the general gist of it. He's nice and normal, likes football and animals and wants to be around you all the time. The wanting is the thing that does you in. It's been ages since someone wanted you. 

You go to his football matches and friends’ birthdays and then, oh, gosh, you spend the holidays together at his parents, as you've nowhere else to be other than work. It’s all...good, if a bit fast, but sod it, you can't stomach the idea of working Christmas again (surely the most pathetic time of year). So you go. And you enjoy it. Really. Tom is fun and sweet and uncomplicated in a way that feels good and healthy and stable. And, some months later, when he gives you a ring and smiles a scared little smile, all down on one knee and everything, you say, ‘Yes!’ and let yourself get pulled into a lovely, dreamy future with this sweet, straightforward man who loves you with the utter, uncomplicated adoration he reserves for his mum and his dog and Manchester United.

It's nice. It really is. You do care, you do love him, and Krina's stopped giving you that horrible side-look every time you meet, like she's calculating the exact number of unpaid hours you've worked on some side project not sanctioned by the hospital or trying to figure when you’re likely to be censured for whatever breach of regulations _he_ managed to talk you into committing. You aren't doing that anymore. No, you're taking Tom’s dog to the park and valiantly trying to understand the appeal of the classic rock he loves; you're watching bad action films (you used to like these spy thrillers...didn’t you?) and sitting in pubs, tracing the rim of your half-finished glass, wondering if Arsenal will manage to pull off a draw and definitely not thinking about mysterious, dark-haired men in long coats; about secret overseas missions or the rare and cryptic texts you occasionally get from unknown numbers in the middle of the night. 

You're definitely not doing that. Just like you're not thinking about the lie you keep close, secreted away in a small, inside pocket of your heart. The one you take out occasionally, very late at night, in the quietness of the morgue or when the crowd around you is too absorbed in some play on-screen to notice the unfocused, far-awayness about you. In those silent, hidden spaces of your life, you take your secret out and marvel at it. How this big, magnificent, _important_ thing – so much bigger and more important than you are – fits somewhere so...small. So unlikely. 

It’s a powerful thing, this secret. It changes you. And because you are its keeper, each time you think on it, you begin to realize that you are not so small. You, Molly Hooper. You’re – just a bit – important. 

So you keep it safe. You polish it up, mind it with care. It is precious, after all. Paramount. More than the work you falsified; the friends you deceived; the diamond you wear, you treasure your secret above all things. You protect it with all you are. You keep it – keep _him_ – safe.

(And if, deep down, you think your involvement was, in reality, unnecessary; that Mycroft could have done what you'd done, could have managed it all, the paperwork, the body...Well, it doesn’t matter. Because you suspect, in those silent, searching moments – alone in the crowd, or in the sweet, alien comfort of Tom's arms – that your job was never just about logistics. You keep the lights on. You tend the flame. You believe in Sherlock Holmes.)

"Did you see that?!" Tom will ask, cheering at some chancey move, some unlikely goal. And you snap back into focus, school your features into some measure of excitement. 

"I can't believe it," you answer. 

You don't. 

.  
.  
.

_> >users/mhooper/music/itunes/playlists/2014/what-would-i-sing-about-if-i-had-you_  
The Airborne Toxic Event - Duet  
Best Coast - Up All Night  
Grouplove - Girl  
Rilo Kiley - A Man/Me/Then Jim  
The Magnetic Fields - I Don’t Really Love You Anymore 

.  
.  
.  
The year after he comes home is hard. Really, really hard. Worse than the stint before rehab, when he'd just been a too-thin, sour-faced menace hanging about Greg every now and again. Worse, somehow, than the aching absence that hung about the city for the years he was gone, when London wasn’t itself, shoved off to the side by the wretched Olympic-sized crowds, the violent rioting, the perpetual unease. The city hadn’t been the same without him. Sherlock isn’t the same, either. Restored to his former glory, he’s different. Sweeter, in his own way, but...Well, not distant, precisely, but...Something. His edges seem softer, but sharper, too. It’s hard for you to describe.

He takes you to solve crimes one blissful afternoon not long after his resurrection and at the day’s end, he’s so overwhelmingly, unexpectedly kind. He says lovely things that you almost cannot believe you are hearing. That you – _you_ , Molly Hooper – you mattered that most. You were the key. And when he kisses you on the cheek, something in you starts to crack. Like you’ve been holding a pose and a smile for so long (two years, actually), like some statue-version of yourself, frozen in time. The model version of Molly Hooper, maybe. The version who should be planning her future out rather than skulking in the shadows with an unholy terror of Interpol's most wanted. Trouble is, now that he’s home, you want nothing more than to dash off this wretched pedestal and go after him. But you don’t. You’ve a ring, now, and a fiancé and a life that’s _nice_. 

You should be happy. 

Instead, you are very sad. 

You walk home, listening to Pandora. When Bethany Cosentino of Best Coast starts crooning about the boy she can’t get over, the one she’s up all night for – _too good to be, too dumb to see_ – you realize it was always going to be a trade-off, your portion of mourning for Sherlock Holmes. You didn't get to escape it just because you knew the truth behind his supposed death. No. Yours had a staggered start that left you waiting at the line when, ha, here you thought you were just a spectator. How wrong you were. 

Hurt, it seems, is the high cost of friendship with Sherlock, and he demands regular and steady payment. You puff out little clouds of white air that dissipate into the gloom. Friendship shouldn’t come at such a painful price. 

(In your head, the Molly from two years ago pipes up. _It doesn’t_ , she politely points out. _That is the price you pay for love_. 

You ignore her; she was an idiot.)

Weeks roll into months. The true-blue grief of the thing you won't name slips in through the doors he keeps barreling through, knocking down all your meticulously constructed walls in the process.

But then, you’ve nothing so grand as a palace. They weren't great walls to begin with. 

.  
.  
.

_> >users/mhooper/music/itunes/playlists/2014/songs-of-could-have-been_  
The New Pornographers - Adventures in Solitude  
Bloc Party - This Modern Love  
The Spring Standards - Only Skin  
The Shins - Gone for Good  
The Killers - Smile Like You Mean It 

.  
.  
.

Things with Tom fall apart after John gets married. If you’re honest with yourself in the way you haven’t been for a long time, you knew it would come to this. All the reasons why you got together aren’t quite strong enough to keep you there, turns out. You should be torn. You should suffer and ache and agonize through this decision. But you’ve already made it. You made it on a winter day, months before. 

You end it in June, just as the summer is beginning to stretch out with possibility. All you see on the horizon are inky, anvil-headed thunderclouds of relief and regret. Tom is visibly crushed. You give him the ring and murmur a few words about him deserving more, deserving better, and leave for the last time. You sniffle and wipe at a few tears, hating that there’s an undeniable part of you feeling such a sense of relief; a blackly buoyant, _looming_ sense that leaving is the right thing to do. It is far easier than it has any right to be. 

Out on the pavement, you look up over Battersea to the heavy clouds hanging above the storied roofs of London. It grows darker as the wind blows in from the east. You hurry to the Tube, hoping you can make it home before the sky starts falling. 

.  
.  
.

He’s awful. He really, really, _really_ can be awful. 

There is, of course, a searing satisfaction that you get at finally smacking his beautiful _bloody_ face when the drug screen shows cocaine in his bloodstream. But, honestly, with the coke and the feeding frenzy in the press and the poor, stupid girl (who is neither as pitiable nor as stupid as you were when you stood in her shoes, looking dreamily at another sociopath those years ago) it feels like an empty victory. 

Some days you think they all are.

.  
.  
.

Two in the morning and John calls in a panic. _Sherlock’s been shot_ , he says, and your heart contracts so forcefully that for a moment you think you might actually have gone into arrhythmia. You can’t speak. You can’t breathe. This, this precise moment, is exactly what you feared while he was gone. Waking up in the middle of the night to some phone call from his brother to learn he’d been killed an hour or a week or a month before in Lagos, Calcutta, Shanghai. But not like this, not when he was supposed to be back...be _safe_. And there’s the rub, you think, and struggling to remember how to take a breath. He’s never been safe, never been ordinary, and when you get down to it, that’s part of what draws you to him, that is. What has always drawn you to him. 

John shares what information he has on Sherlock’s status, promising updates as soon as has any. You feel almost violent with panic and hurt and _so beyond fucking angry_ at him. You are nearly beside yourself with fear and confusion as you scramble for clean clothes without contacts in. Why can’t you find two shoes that are the same?! Do _none_ of them match? Fuck it, you’ll go barefoot if you have to. 

It’s that staggered start, again. The emotional exchange that was the price of his trust and your help all along. 

You sink to the floor, burying your face in your hands. Suddenly all the inner turmoil you've felt since his face appeared in your mirror very late one night, it all reaches a critical fail-point, and everything just pours out. As it does, a stark, enveloping fear takes up all the air in your lungs, inhabits every cell in your body, dividing on and on and on. 

_This what it was like_ , you think, in some hazy hour that is not quite dawn. _This is what it was like for everyone else_.

You cry so much. Properly, like you never did for Tom, even after ending a whole nice, little maybe-life with him. And you feel all the worse for it, because it seems so small, so insignificant compared the potential of the loss facing you now. Because losing Sherlock...it would be like losing the sun. The entire fucking planet would feel the loss of it. God, the way grief makes you dramatic, you sniffle. _Please_ , you whisper, with words and not, _pleasepleaseplease_. You beg and you plead and you cry horribly. And every gasp, every tear is one more desperate, futile offering to any deity who will listen to spare the life of Sherlock Holmes, who you cannot stop loving. 

.  
.  
.

_> >users/mhooper/music/itunes/playlists/2014/this-is-london_  
RAC, Kele + MNDR - Let Go  
Airborne Toxic Event - This is London  
Ladyhawke - Girl Like Me  
CHVRCHES - Gun  
Best Coast - Who Have I Become 

.  
.  
.

He survives, because he has more lives than your bloody cat, it would seem. But you do not – _you will not_ – go see him. You are still so angry, and hurt, that you shake with rage when you spy those stupid tabloid headlines. Does _no one_ in the press do even the bare minimum of research anymore? Disgusting. There’s a bad moon above everyone these days; Mary and John have fallen out, too. Weeks go by and you don’t see anyone apart from Sally or Greg, who says John’s back at Baker Street for now, and doesn’t have any more clue as to why that is than you do. 

Sherlock, for his part, creates distance of his own. He avoids Barts, and stops stealing your lab and your coffee and your flat. In short, he vanishes from your life. For a while, its almost like it was when he was gone, those wilderness years when he was a dead man. 

And so you don't. See him. In fact, one dull afternoon while you’re mindlessly scrolling around Pitchfork (resolutely pretending you don’t miss him), you decide that maybe this is it. Time to cut ties for good. The last five years haven’t precisely been healthy for you, emotionally speaking. Sure, you’ve grown some, have stopped letting people walk all over you (well, most people), and you’ve a body of published work more impressive than a majority of specialists twice your age. But you’ve been slipping back into your old habits over the last year, and never more so than since Tom’s been out of the picture. Plus, by December, Krina is back to making her worry face again. She asks a series of calculated questions about work and your love life (lackthereof) and why you didn’t come to drinks at The Library during your weekly rock climbing date. You never mention Sherlock by name, but, well, Krina might be the only person in the world better at deducing you than he is. 

The next day she sends you an email about a 12-month-long research fellowship in California. You roll your eyes. Sixteen years since you were both awkward Cambridge Freshers; she hasn’t changed dramatically since your days gossiping on the grass outside the Caius library, and you know her MO well enough by now. Her email reads just _a touch_ too bright, just a bit too casual to be the passing lunchtime note she intends it to be. 

Sigh. Which doesn't mean you don't consider it. You bite your lip as your eyes flick over the posting on UCSF’s website, and you have to admit, it’s appealing, and the research project is affiliated with Elizabeth Blackburn’s lab, no less, who is not only a brilliant and well-respected fellow Cambridge alumna, but has a bloody Nobel Prize to boot. It could...It could be a good thing. An opportunity. 

_Just think about it Molly,_ says Krina’s email. 

In your head, you paint little mental picture of a life as lived amongst cool, asymmetrical haircut hipster scientists, accessorized with bikes and tattoos and burritos. In the background a soaring rust-red bridge looms large against a big, sunsetty ocean-view sky. The thought leaves you craving avocado and artichokes, cheap beer from a can. It could be clean break. Maybe. God knows you could use some sunshine. Maybe you’ll learn to surf or do a bit of proper outdoor climbing in Joshua Tree or Bishop or Yosemite. You could meet new people. _You_ could be new. 

Your find yourself smiling all through the rest of your shift, humming a little tune as you sketch a palm tree in the margins of your notes, scribbling a reminder to yourself about updates to your CV. After the holiday, you decide. You’ll submit an application after the holiday.

.  
.  
.

You never get the chance. Because suddenly another not-dead sociopathic madman gets up and walks out of his grave. And Sherlock Holmes, on probationary house arrest by order of the British government, suddenly requires a new flatmate. 

.  
.  
.

_> >users/mhooper/music/itunes/playlists/2015/nick-if-you-ever-learn-it-never-shows_  
The New Pornographers - Go Places  
The Mowgli’s - San Francisco  
Vampire Weekend - California English  
Neko Case - In California  
Islands - This is Not a Song 

.  
.  
.

Some of the details he glosses over. Like how he, oh, you know, shot a man in cold blood, was tried before a court of _no one_ , and was sentenced to an exile that effectively meant death by whatever horrifyingly creative method some ruthlessly cruel Eastern European crime lord cared to employ. It’s the last part that hurts the most. 

Because he didn’t…Even if...He never…

You set your jaw, purse your lips. No. Of course he didn’t. What did you expect, some flowers and a handwritten note? _Dear Molly, it’s been a laugh. Off to Azerbaijan at the mo. Got a bit murdery at Christmas (Me. Holidays. Never a good combination. You know.) Mycroft’s returning the favor now. So long and thanks for all the fingers!_

You push it aside, back behind the overwhelming fear that has magnified many times over since that awful broadcast. Jim. Jim Moriarty. You can only think of one reason why you might be on the hit-list of the world’s most notorious reanimated consulting criminal, but it’s a pretty good one. Death certificates being a matter of public record, and all. 

Your suspicion is verified the day someone pulls a gun on you outside Barts, and you just barely manage to slip away amid the crowds and chaos of the A&E. When Greg and John escort you home, it’s to find your apartment carefully, thoughtfully disturbed and your cat missing. A mug of tea, half-drunk, where there had not been one that morning. A remote out of place. A blanket discarded. Your pyjamas folded neatly upon your bed. It makes your stomach turn over uneasily. When eerie texts from a blocked number begin to show up on your mobile, well, you don’t need to be Sherlock to suspect who they are from. 

**Pussycat, pussycat, where have you been?**

**I’ve been to London to visit the QUEEN.**

**See you soooooon Molly dear! Ta!**

Which brings you to Baker Street, where a group of privileged arseholes order you aside and stand about talking about _what you are going to do_ without even considering, it would seem, how _you_ feel about the matter. 

“Would you mind speaking as though I were an actual adult who is capable of making decisions for herself?” you spit, rather proud that your voice doesn’t waver. Mycroft appears to have only just noticed you at all. You give him your most imperious look, and drum your fingers along the armchair, waiting. He raises one eyebrow at Sherlock before launching through it all again. Security is paramount (haughty look); he’ll arrange the resources Sherlock needs to track Moriarty down (haughty look); safety for possible targets will be ensured at all times (very haughty look); multiples tiers of protocols, haughty, bored etcetera. 

Of course, all of his careful planning relies on you becoming a permanent fixture at 221B. 

John is clearly guilty. One of the terms of Mycroft’s agreement is supervision: Sherlock still needs a minder, someone to keep an eye out, make he stays off the drugs he so conveniently claims to have relapsed onto “for a case.” As he’s effectively under Mycroft’s thumb until Moriarty is apprehended and some of his penance paid, he really has no choice in the matter. He glares derisively at you all, spitting something about no longer needing a nanny before he slams the door to his room. 

"Can't say it'll be easy,” John says heavily. “But you've the patience of a saint, Molly. And it'll be temporary, I swear. Just till this is all sorted out." Truthfully, he looks as if he hadn’t a very expectant wife to care for and a child who’d be arriving soon, he’d step in and take your place. Knowing John, he might anyway, just to spare you the hell of it. Not that you would let him. You stare at the door that remains firmly shut, the sound of a violin playing, muted and seemingly far-away.

“Okay,” you say, swallowing.

It’s really beginning to dawn on you just how much of masochist you are.

.  
.  
.

It’s not so bad, at first. He makes sudden demands or otherwise ignores you (though there are times when you catch a flicker of movement from his eyes, and you’d swear he’d just been staring at you), which, frankly, is not so different from having a cat. Toby, ill-tempered creatures that he was, had the very same “Come here, but don’t!” attitude. You snort a giggle at the thought, and get a bit choked up, too. He might not have been the most affectionate creature, but he was your pet. And Jim or one of his lackeys probably hurt him. Because of you. God, you think, biting back on a wanting sob. It’s all a bit fit for ITV, this. Meanwhile you keep to yourself and continue to check Sherlock's shoes and various stashes, searching for others when he’s asleep or off with an armed retinue (Oh, but he must _hate_ that). 

When boredom sets in though, that’s when things go downhill, picking up speed and spite as you’re dragged painfully along. He becomes curt and dismissive, telling you to stop trying to help, stop attempting to contribute, stop talking every turn, even if you've been quiet as a bloody mouse, _and_ got your headphones on _and_ , _oh_ my GOD, you _just_ want to listen to The Shins in peace. He's exactly like the cigarettes he won't give up, you think, after barely a week of his awful comments and door slamming and scowls on his beautiful, sneering face. Easy to see why he’s got so many enemies, you decide. You can practically feel your life expectancy going down every second you spend on the same street as him. 

"Shut up!" you snap, finally losing it one evening.

You’re met with the typical nasty response. "Do be quiet, Molly. You can hardly help it, but the emotional outbursts really are getting tiresome."

“No,” you say again, louder, lifting your chin. “I will not tolerate this anymore, Sherlock. I will not deal with your awful attitude just because your brother seems to think playing babysitter to you is somehow for my benefit. Even if it is, I should hardly be grateful for being treated like this. You’ll be civil to me or I promise you that I am _done_. I will have Mycroft send me off to fucking _Siberia_ before I stay another minute longer in this flat with you.” 

He barely even glances at you, though raises an eyebrow when you swear. Not used to such colorful language from you, apparently. Screw him. You turn and shove a stack of dirty dishes in the sink. “Don’t even know why I’m here,” you angrily mutter to yourself. 

“Obviously,” he quips, drumming his fingers on the mantle, “because my friends are being targeted by a undead criminal mastermind with a flair for the dramatic. This arrangement is meant to be _convenient_ , though, mmm, yes, it’s certainly more to Mycroft’s benefit than yours. I’m sure he’s enjoying his little game.” 

You miss most of the latter half of his statement because your jaw drops at the first part of what he’s said. "Friend. _Friend_?" you parrot, a mocking tone to your voice that’s reminiscent of him. It gets his attention. He looks up, blinks.

To be fair, he’s not entirely wrong. You were friends once. But no longer. "Until very recently,” you continue. “I hadn’t even _seen_ you in months.” You bite back on the torrent of emotion pouring through you, incredulous. Everything you’ve held back for the last year, since the downward spiral began, suddenly bursts through you in a hot outflow of rage and hurting. “You hurt me, Sherlock. With drugs and nearly dying and dragging yourself down through the press for a case. _That you screwed up_." 

That hits him where it hurts, apparently, because he scowls, turns away. But you aren’t letting him off the hook. If you don’t say it all now you might never get the chance to. So you march up to him and get in his face, forcing him to not only look at, but see you. 

"What’s worse though, is that you were prepared to leave. _Forever_. To die – actually die, this time. And you didn’t even say goodbye? After everything–” 

Your voice breaks. You look away, shutting your eyes against the prick of tears. Breathe. “Yes, Sherlock," you manage, throat thick. "Once upon a time, I was your friend," you say, meeting his strange, sad gaze. "But not anymore. And when this is over, you’ll need to find a new pathologist to help you. Because I can't do this any longer."

He opens his mouth like he has something to say, then shuts it quickly. “Once upon a time,” he repeats after a beat. The veneer of detachment returns. And then he's off, dashing down the stairs and out the door. 

You stare at the empty doorway and wonder if, later, when he reviews this moment in his mind, he’ll even remember you were in the room at all. 

You walk wearily up the stairs to your bedroom – _Cell!_ you think with a bit of glorious self-indulgence – and spend the rest of the night working. At some point a door slams downstairs. You turn up the volume on jangly pop songs by Ra Ra Riot and Tokyo Police Club and Vampire Weekend that he could only hate, the music far louder than normal because _you live here, too_. And all the while, you try not to be deeply irritated by the fact that short years ago your younger self would have loved to play some part in this horrible, twisted rom-com trope of an experience. 

You acidly stuff the finished paperwork from your last workups into folders and decide that when this is all over you're moving to Bali or Vancouver or sodding _Detroit_ if it gets you out of this broken record of life you _stupidly_ insist on living. 

"The gloves are off, the wisdom teeth are out," Ezra Koenig sings. "What you on about?” Columbia’s alt-pop finest are skipping backwards through their albums from _Modern Vampires of the City_ to _Contra_ when you hear the sound of his violin start up. You turn your music up over the half-familiar melody.

“Here comes a feeling you thought you’d forgotten,” Ezra says. 

You're not an idiot, but, oh, _God_. You swipe at hot and furious tears. You really, _really_ are. 

.  
.  
.

_> >users/mhooper/music/itunes/playlists/2015/somethings-gotta-give_  
The Black Keys - Everlasting Light  
Youngblood Hawke - Blackbeak  
The Killers - Jenny Was a Friend of Mine  
M83 - Midnight City  
The 1975 - Robbers 

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.  
.

“Protection,” they said. “Keep you safe,” they told you. “Maximum security,” they promised. Lot of good it did you. 

Jim has the dead-eye smile of a shark, all flat and empty and nothing but teeth. Fitting, really, since he seems quite keen to see you drown. 

Through the thick, industrial plexiglass-type material of the tank, his voice is tinny and muted. He’s secluded you away in some abandoned facility, found specifically for his theatrics, no doubt. The translucent plexi is thick, though though you can hear make our his words well enough. A shame, since you’re not particularly enjoying his delighted, absurdist ravings, which have only gotten more manic in the hour or two since you woke up here. Goosebumps pebbled across your skin. You shiver, looking around you for the thousandth time. Through skylights above you catch the barest glimmer of watery moonlight. You wish the moon was brighter tonight. You really don’t want to die in the dark. 

Jim skips around with hands in his pockets, thrilled beyond belief with himself and his plan. And has _your cat_. He pulls out a phone, sends a few texts off, sing-songing words that don’t seem to be directed at you. Which pisses you off, frankly. Having gone through all the trouble of kidnapping you, he could at least bother with the Bond villain-esque explanation about the point of his grand plan, however psychotic it may be. Jims stands before you, holds up his phone to snap a selfie with Toby, and you, saying, “Smiiiiiiile! Wouldn’t want to let your good, _brave_ knight see you disheartened.” 

You swallow and try to stay calm. There’s not much chance of you getting out. The chamber, tank, whatever, is sealed from the outside, with a series of openings where water has begun trickling through the floor from from below. There’s nothing you can do; you can’t reach all the sources at once. You can’t block the flow. It’s neat. Clean. No bullets or snipers or messy explosions this time. Just a tidy little tank, and water that keeps getting higher.

And no way out. 

A horrified little cry escapes your throat as the water tickles your ankles and shins, soaking up the fabric of your jeans. You really wish he would just shoot you. He’s spouting off his twisted little parables and a shiver of rage goes through you at the memory of him gripping your jaw in his hand. A mad glint in his eyes as he trills in that eerie, high voice.

“Molly,” Sherlock says, and steps into view. The light is low, but the one floodlight illuminates his pale features, a stark contrast against the darkness. There’s a flicker of his eyes as he quickly calculates volume, rate of flow and finds himself coming up short on time. Thank God, you think. Oh, thank God, thank God. But there’s no crowd of NSY officers or Interpol or even John. 

“Only a few minutes before this tank is filled.” 

“Yes,” you gulp, teeth chattering. A horrible, nervous little, hiccup of a laugh escapes. “I’d stake my life on it.” 

Jim howls, finds you hilarious. “Terrrrrible, oh terrible! I love it. Where do you _find_ them, Sherlock?” 

“Shut up, Molly,” Sherlock says, looking the structure over. 

Soon enough, you will be. “I rather think that’s the point.” You force a watery smile that dissolves when you see _his_ expression. 

Oh, he looks so _sad_. 

Sherlock puts his fingers to the glass. You press your fingers up against his. Like the barrier, the silence between you is thick and certain. It feels final in a way you can’t cope with, and the panic you feel is magnified a thousand times over when you see it reflected in his eyes. And that, _that_ , more than anything else, brings it all home. _Here it is_ , you think. The last calculation you’ll ever do for him. The sum of these two parts is the one difference: You are not leaving here alive.

He tears his eyes away and snaps something at Jim. There’s some game afoot between them, as ever, and Sherlock takes care to make either the right moves or none at all. The water laps at your waist. 

Jim banters, laughs, taunts him. All the while, you can see that rapid-fire movement, his eyes flicking right to left as his mind does its faster-than-light, electrochemical magic. You can’t hear them properly anymore because the water is almost to your chin. You have to kick and fight to tread water, and inside the tank it’s splashing everywhere at once. Oh! You gasp and – _oh God!_ –gasp, gasp, _gasp_ , kicking and flailing and trying to lift your face to that last few inches of air, desperate for that last, unbearable breath.

 _You really are going to die, you know_ , that voice, that old Molly, says. _You should have told him, just once. Even if he knew, you should have said it._

Just before your breath gives out, just before your burning, traitorous lungs gasp for the air that won’t come, you push away from the glass, your back to him. It’s not much, but you don’t want him to see. You don’t want him to have that, the memory of watching you die. 

You’re so, _so_ scared. The water hurts. It _hurts_. 

And then, mercifully, it is over. 

.  
.  
.

Some hours later, when you properly awaken from the haze of shock and adrenaline and painkillers, John is scrunched into an awkward position in a chair at your bedside. Mary joins him shortly. She hugs you very hard as you stare, confused, somewhat mistrustful. You didn’t know she had the baby. One of many things about her you didn’t know, apparently. 

John fills you on the details you missed, what with the lack of oxygen and all. You glance often between his, and Mary’s, heartfelt gaze. In your head you begin to organize all the questions you'll ask once you are all away from this place. You’ll ask why, in the few, spotty moments after you regained consciousness, why Mary was there, with a high-powered rifle in her hands and Jim very much dead on the wet, concrete floor. Hopefully for the last time now. You will ask how she learned to shoot it so well, and if she isn’t MI6 or something. You suspect something has been playing out behind the scenes, that this all has to do with the darkness between them, with Sherlock’s near-death and everything else that went down over the last year. 

But there is a time and place for those questions, and it’s not now, not here in this austere, white room in a hospital that isn’t yours and so seems wrong somehow, and you just want to get out of there as soon as humanly possible. So you smile, and comment on their lovely little girl, Catherine, who was born the day you were kidnapped. 

“Molly,” Mary says, blinking back tears that aren’t quite happy, aren’t entirely sad. “Her middle name is Molly.” Something in you breaks, something that needed breaking, so it could begin to properly heal. 

.  
.  
.

You’re only under observation for a few days but it feels like forever. Friends stop in, reminding you how many you actually have. You tend to forget that, sometimes. Krina sobs her heart out into your shoulder. 

“You’re never leaving my side again, I don’t care what Billy says. He’ll just have to deal with it!” She blows her nose. “He almost _killed_ you, Molly!” (You’re not entirely sure who she means by that.) A day later, her twin Meena flies back from her new job in Zurich and does the exact same thing, prompting an encore from her sister. Billy leaves a note and flowers that are from Tom, which is predictably sweet. Your brother Skypes in from Hong Kong every day (the calls predictably running a bit less each time). The attention is completely, utterly mortifying. You’re really beginning to really hate it by the time Greg, Sally Donovan and Phillip Anderson stop in on Day Three. But it’s fine. Sally even manages to be civil and hold her tongue about the whole wretched affair. Mrs. Hudson brings you biscuits. Mike and Judy and your intern, Carolina, all come by, which is properly nice of all of them.

The only person you don’t expect to see is him. You don’t even know what you’d say. So you tell yourself you’re glad Sherlock doesn’t make an appearance. His brother, however, does. 

You take a breath, meeting Mycroft Holmes’ inscrutable stare. You lift your chin and think of sunshine as you tell him, “There’s something I need you to do for me.” 

.  
.  
.

The weird thing about going back to Baker Street is finding Sherlock Holmes in your bed. You certainly didn’t leave him there. 

At your back on the stairs, Mary raises a brow and shoots you a questioning look to which you can only shrug. You weren’t expecting to see him, let alone have an actual conversation. Sherlock often sleeps for days after the difficult cases, and you aren’t so wholly self-deprecating as to think this hasn’t been a hell for everyone involved. (Frankly, you’d like to sleep for a year or so, yourself). Moreover, expecting to get any sort of meaningful social interaction out of Sherlock is a bit like expecting signs of alien intelligence to appear on the steps of the British Museum – theoretically possible, though not at all likely to happen anytime soon. 

Mary’s eyes flick back and forth between the pair of you. She blinks, sizing the scene up. She gives you a look that is equal parts encouragement and sympathy before closing the door and slipping out. So much for those answers. 

“What are you–?” There’s a flash of furry movement from his side. You crane your neck. Is that– “Toby!” You exclaim, smiling in spite of everything else. You reach for your ill-tempered cat, who, for exactly once in his life, sees fit to be held. “Wretched beast,” you sniffle. You look to Sherlock, astonished, confused. “Is this where you’ve been? Looking for my cat?” 

He shrugs, tappings his fingers against his upraised knee. “Given I was responsible for his loss, I felt it was only fair to recover him.” Toby jumps from your arms, darts down the stairs, content with the thirty seconds worth of affection prompted by reunion. Sherlock makes no move to leave. 

You take a seat the edge of the bed, frowning. The awkwardness that dominated your relationship with this man for so many years seems to have crept back into the fold. You toy with the hospital bracelet still on your wrist, trying to find the right words for the myriad feelings running through you. The gesture he’s presented you with has caught you off guard. Some of the anger, the sadness and disappointment abates, leaving you only more confounded and at all a loss.“Greg and John told me some of what you did,” you venture. “How you hard you worked to find me.” 

He stares straight ahead, impassive. “You were not responsible for this, Sherlock,” you offer, gently. 

Something shifts in his expression. “You should not have been taken in the first place,” he snaps. By the thinness of his mouth and the way his clenches his fist, you can see his outrage is not directed at you. “You were not supposed to _be_ in danger,” he continues. “That was the whole _point_ of all this.” He breathes through his nose, quickly, angry. 

"I am sorry," he grits out after a moment. He drums his fingers along his thigh in quietly controlled rage. 

You shake your head, weary. “There’s nothing to be sorry–”

He cuts you off. "I am sorry that we are not friends." 

And for the first time since you saw him through the glass, since he watched you die, he meets your eyes. Oh, and still. He _still_ looks so sad. A wave of guilt washes over you. "I didn't mean that." 

“No?” 

“I was angry,” you explain. “From the moment Mycroft all but forced me in here, you were cold and rude to me. Far more so than usual. All I was doing was trying to help you, Sherlock. Like I do. I always want to help you,” you say.

A muscle tics in his jaw. “I did not need – or want – your help.” 

_God_. You turn away, not wanting him to see how badly that hurts to hear, even if it is true. And it is true. It will always be true, right up until the next time he decides it isn’t, and comes looking for something he can’t get, something he wants, or something he simply can’t be bothered with on his own. When he decides he needs your assistance, your flat, your bodies. He’s right. You aren’t friends. You are _convenient_. 

Right. Clothes. You need your clothes. Books, shoes, records. This isn’t your home. You need to go back to your flat and start putting your life in boxes. Thanks to Mycroft, you’re expected in San Francisco in three weeks. 

“Okay,” you tell yourself. Enough now. You take a breath. It leaves your body slowly. Maybe, maybe, if you are very lucky, something else that has long taken root inside you, in your mind and in your heart, will leave with it.

“Molly–”

“It’s fine, Sherlock,” you say evenly, over your shoulder, opening a drawer. 

“I am not finished,” he protests.

“No, I get it.” 

“Molly–” 

“Please let me be, Sherlock,” you say, calmly, reaching for your headphones, a notebook, a half-finished China Miéville novel. “I’ll be gone soon enough.” 

There’s a rustle of movement, creak of floorboards and then he’s in your ear, just over your shoulder, and because he’s there, so _close_ , how can you do anything but turn? You look over your shoulder, eyes low, knowing if you look into those eyes, you are very much in danger of breaking. You’re stronger than that. Than this. And even if you will love Sherlock for always, you deserve more than his casual indifference. 

“Molly,” he repeats, a hand at your shoulder. “I _could not_ ask for your help. Not when it exposed you. When it threatened to make you more...involved. I needed you here not to help, not to get more tangled than you already were, but because–” You turn, finally, and look at him fully. 

He swallows, shifts, hesitating, averting his eyes like a small boy. “...I just needed you. Here. Safe. With me.” 

You freeze, headphones in hand. He can’t mean it. He doesn’t do sentiment. You know this. You _know_ this. “That’s not true. Sherlock?” 

He dares to look contrite. “Yes. In retrospect I see that I might have made the source of my frustrations a touch clearer. Bit not good.” 

You stare, eyes wide and unblinking. 

You can’t– 

He what–? 

Can he mean–?

“Molly.” he says, a slight tremor to his voice. “Don’t leave. Please.” Of course Mycroft would have told him. 

“Leave?” You repeat, at a complete loss for words of your own. 

“England,” he says, stepping in, closer to you than you have ever, ever been.

“Barts,” he says, softer. “Baker Street.” 

You look up into his face. From the far side of this bizarre alternate reality you’ve wandered into – the one where Sherlock Holmes hangs around in your bed after saving your life and finding your cat and begs you not to go away – he holds himself with such sorrow. But also not. Because, you know that expression. It is the way he looked once, in a hallway in Kensington, when you told him you were marrying someone else. When he said he wanted you to be happy. It’s hope and regret and so much more than can be put into words. 

Oh. _Oh, Sherlock_ , you think. _Why didn’t you_ tell _me?_ Dimly, without caring, you register the sound of your headphones smashing on the floor. His arms come around you. And you, Molly Hooper, you and your exit strategy, your big escape, your well-thought out, meticulously planned decision to trade in happiness for self-preservation, it all falls away. 

A last, desperate, plea whispered against your lips. “Me.” 

How could you? You love him. 

You always have.  
.  
.  
.

One more playlist Molly Hooper made (for the same reason she made them all along.)

_> >users/mhooper/music/itunes/playlists/2015/instructions-for-dancing_  
Ra Ra Riot - Beta Love (RAC Mix)  
The Shins - Simple Song  
The Airborne Toxic Event - All For a Woman  
The Magnetic Fields - The Book of Love  
The Weepies - I Was Made For You 

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.  
.

“What’re you doing?” He has your earbuds in – the good Sennheiser ones he gave you after your old headphones shattered – as he leans back in his chair, eyes closed with his hands bridged below his chin. 

“Listening to your music,” Sherlock says. 

“I managed that deduction on my own, thanks,” you say, shrugging out of your coat. “You hate my music.” 

His eyes open. “I don’t ‘hate’ it. It’s derivative, baseless and idiotic, yes, but so is television, or the news, and I consume both readily enough, don’t I?” He says, flippant. You perch on the chair's arm, snagging the left wire. You put it to your ear. 

“–full of charts and facts and figures, and instructions for dancing,” sings Stephin Merritt of The Magnetic Fields.

“ _Why_ are you listening to my music?”

“Testing a theory.” 

“A theory. That pertains to my iTunes library.” 

“Wanted to know if everything you listen to is the same degree of dreadful.” 

You smirk, rolling your eyes at his snobbery. “What’ve you found then, Stravinsky?” 

“Well,” he says, pressing _Pause_. “From the sample size determined by your mixes, ratings system and Most Frequent Plays, I’d have to say…” He reaches out, grabs you by the waist and tugs you into his lap. “‘Some of it is just transcendental, some of it is just really dumb,’” he recites, quoting the song he'd been listening to, his voice that low baritone that sends shivers straight through you.

This strange, strange man. “I’ll make you a playlist,” you say, removing the earbuds from around his neck and threading your fingers through his hair. 

Sherlock just smirks, and leans in to kiss you. “Molly Hooper. You already have.”


End file.
